Israeli soldiers have shot and wounded two Palestinian youths, one near the West Bank city of Bethlehem and the other in the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli security forces seriously wounded a 15-year-old Palestinian boy on Friday during a protest in the Aida refugee camp, north of Bethlehem.

The teenager was hit in the face by a bullet that bounced off the ground and was taken to hospital in Beit Jala, before being transferred to Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in al-Quds (Jerusalem) for further treatment.

At Aida, demonstrators were protesting against Tel Aviv’s expropriation of Palestinian lands for Tel Aviv’s illegal separation barrier that zigzags through the occupied West Bank. On Tuesday, a 17-year-old Palestinian died after being hit by three bullets in the West Bank village of Budrus, the fourth Palestinian shot dead in the West Bank and Gaza since last Friday.

In the blockaded Gaza Strip, a 17-year-old boy was shot in the leg on Friday after he approached Israel’s separation fence east of Beit Lahiya, Palestinian medical officials said.

The death was the fourth such incident in Gaza since a November 21 truce between Tel Aviv and Hamas ended eight days of deadly Israeli strikes on the populated coastal enclave.

Under the truce agreement, Israel is required to allow Palestinians to enter what it had previously declared as a 300-meter deep no-go zone on the Gaza side of the border.

Farmers have been allowed to move up to 100 meters from the border, but Israeli troops open fire at Palestinians, claiming they have come closer than that.